Life is crazy and other stuff

To update those who are following the continued drama that is my life.  I will try and be brief.


Passport:  I have received notice that it has arrived and I will pick it up next Friday during an extremely long day which will involved a very early train to Casablanca, grabbing the passport out of their hands, turning around and getting back on the train and returning here.  Hopefully all will go well and I won't have any more crazy stories to tell.


Living arrangements:  This has been changing hourly.  I was informed the other day that I am going to be sent to another house for several days because there are problems  in that house and somehow they think that I can solve them.  Feel like I am getting in the middle of another situation where people are afraid to give someone the bad news so they want me to do it.  At least before I was being paid for it.  I was really bummed about the idea of leaving the girls for a week but I am trying to remind myself that my feelings aren't important, just helping the girls is.  And perhaps I can do something in a few days to help those girls, who knows?  


Then I was informed that I could not come back when I was scheduled to come back because there were going to be other volunteers here.  Then I was told that changed.  Then I was told that I could stay until the end of April.  And finally I was told....never mind, they would like me to stay until May 11th (at which time I am scheduled to go to Paris for a few days to see the Nogrets). A lot of needless drama.


Teaching and other assorted volunteer experiences:
There is now another volunteer in the house and her name is Anne also.  She is a retired French teacher from Belgium and she and her husband also have a house in Marrakesh. She's only going to be here for three weeks until the girls go on vacation.  I like her very much and she has been doing really great work with the girls.  It is wonderful to have the company although I am no longer able to speak English to anyone since her English is pretty much non existent and now that she is here, Latifa has stopped speaking English.


Today we had a crazy day which tested my ability to multi-task.  Latifa went to Marrakesh at 8 in the morning and didn't come back until 7 at night.  Of course everything happened while she was gone. 


I had a girl suddenly develop a fever and pass out and then when I called Latifa she said that I was NOT to go to the hospital with her so her sister came and carried her on her back  through the town .  Then her father showed up (speaking no english but thankfully French) wanting to know what happened and where she was.  After I directed him and settled down the hysterical girls, we just began to have lunch when a tour group of 16 high school students showed up unannounced and wanted to do activities with the girls (all of whom have exams) and wanted a tour of the house and explanation of the program.  I, of course, had couscous all over my hands because Friday is couscous day and now that I am truly a Moroccan I am eating it with my hands.  So I washed my hands, grabbed the girl who speaks the best English and off we went with the group.  


Then the crazy French woman Colette who lives down the road showed up and berated the girls about how they didn't have proper manners and I had to literally shove her out the door.  Then the cook whose name is also Latifa got upset because I had called Latifa (the housemother) about the girl who was sick, so she was angry with me but I couldn't explain to her what went on because she speaks no English,or French and fluent Tashelhit.  So again, I pulled in Khadisha, my trusty best English speaker and asked her to explain in Tashelhit what had happened.  All was smoothed over.


Then the electricity went out.  Then it came back on in several rooms and I attempted to show a movie that I had but the DVD player wouldn't take the American DVD.  So I promised the girls that when Latifa (the housemother...are you getting it all straight? ) got back, and if they did their homework early, they could watch the movie on my computer with the projector from Latifa's office.  So they all did their homework diligently.  Latifa arrived and told them that they couldn't watch the movie and that they had to study.  So much for my credibility. And then I was helping the girls with homework until 10 including sitting in a powerless computer room reading English with girls by flashlight.  And now the wind is blowing so hard that the door to our bedroom keeps flying open.


Tomorrow Anne and I are going to a restaurant that she knows in the next town and I am going to have a stiff drink. No more of this Islamic teetotaling stuff.


One more thing.  I met a woman in town who is living in a smaller town down the road and who is an American and has been living here for 8 years.  Married a Moroccan man who wooed her (something that they seem to be good at) and then turned out to be a drunk and a womanizer (big surprise) but she remained here because she got out of town when Bush was elected and is never going back.  Told her that she could go back to Berkeley though :-).  Anyway, she lives down the road from the house that I will be staying at for several days and we exchanged phone numbers so, who knows, perhaps I have a new friend.  And there is also Hassan who is the local older Moroccan man who is her friend and has already befriended me in town.

Got to go to bed.....I am wiped out.